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PsL Monthly 1994 September
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PSL Monthly Shareware CD-ROM (September 1994).ISO
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news9311.vws
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1993-09-27
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=====News & Views <psl_logo.pcx>
- CD-ROMs Are Simple
- New Windows Viewer for CD
- Programming Section on Next Month's CD
- CD Drive Offers Continue
- Get Your Keyboard Back
- Windows Apps Outsell DOS Apps
- Software Excitement Bankrupt
- New Retail products
... Game Maker - create complex arcade games without programming.
... Hole-In-One-Miniature Golf Deluxe - more fun than the real thing.
... Pinball Dreams - the most realistic pinball game yet.
... Mad Dog McCree CD-ROM - better than the popular arcade game.
... Motor Mouse - you can't tell it's a mouse!
- Letters
- Keeping Track of Receipts
- Corel Buys Ventura
- International Vendors of PsL's CD
-----CD-ROMs Are Simple
A long-time member wrote us that he was thinking of dropping his
membership because of our recent emphasis on the Monthly CD-ROM. He
said that for novices, CD-ROMs are too advanced.
We have also received calls from people interested in getting a
CD-ROM, but who also assumed that using a CD-ROM is complicated.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Once your CD-ROM drive is installed, it looks to the system like
another hard drive, except that you cannot write to it, only read from
it. The driver which is added to your CONFIG.SYS causes DOS to assign
the next available drive letter to it.
If your hard drive is C: and you don't have any other drives except
floppies, the CD-ROM drive will be D:. The CD is made up of
directories and files, just like any other drive. To DOS shells/menus,
Windows File Manager, and other programs, it appears as just another
drive. DOS commands like DIR, COPY, etc., can all be used with the CD.
With the SyDos drive, you can unpack the drive from the box and be
using it in less than five minutes. You just plug the drive into your
printer port (there is a pass-through connector to plug your printer
into) and load the software.
For novices, accessing the CD is no more difficult than reading PsL
News, which is literally what you are doing, just on the screen. To
install a program you are reading about, you just press I and tell it
a drive and directory. What could be easier?
With our special offers starting at $66/month for 3 months to get a
drive and CDs, it's both cheap AND easy.
However, we also want to reassure readers that we are giving a great
amount of space in PsL News to the CD at the present because it is
new. As people become more familiar with the CD, how it works, and
what we are doing with it, the amount of space given to information
about the CD in PsL News will decrease.
-----New Windows Viewer for CD
The PsL Monthly CD for November has a new Windowsbased access program,
PSL_WIN.EXE. It lets you read the PsL News on the CD, view screen
shots, install and run programs, read DOC files, play sounds, view
graphics, etc.
PSL_WIN.EXE is in the root directory of the CD. You can use Program
Manager's File-Run to execute it. It requires VBRUN200.DLL to be in
your Windows directory. If you do not already have it, you can copy it
from the \RUNTIMES directory on the CD.
-----Programming Section on Next Month's CD
Starting with the December CD-ROM, we will attempt to put a different
section of PsL's library on each month's CD.
The December CD will have the section that has received the most
requests so far: Programming. We have over 600 disks of programming
routines, libraries, tutors, compilers and other tools for just about
every language there is.
Files will be arranged into DOS and Windows directories with
subdirectories by language. If you are interested in programming, be
sure to get the December PsL Monthly CD.
-----CD Drive Offers Continue
Readers responded overwhelmingly to our new offer last month which
lets you get a CD-ROM drive for as little as $66 per month for three
months and three months of PsL Monthly CDs for free. (Actual shipping
expense is charged the first month.)
The Mitsumi internal drive is $66 per month for three months, charged
to your credit card. It comes with a proprietary interface card.
Installation is easy. It requires a free slot for the interface card
and a free half-height, 5.25" drive bay for the drive.
The Mitsumi's specs are 350ms access time and 150kb throughput. It
does not use caddies; just drop the CD into the drive.
The SyDos Personal CD is $99 per month for three months, charged to
your credit card. It is an external drive which requires virtually no
installation. Plug it into the parallel port of your PC and plug your
printer into the back of the CD drive's case.
The SyDos specs are 500ms access time and 170kb throughput. It also
does not require caddies. It is not MPC nor Kodak multi-session
compatible without an interface card upgrade.
For those wanting faster drives, we also offer the Texel and Toshiba
drives. See the front inside cover for pricing. We cannot spread
payments over three months for these drives, but we will throw in
three months of free PsL CDs if you ask for them.
-----Get Your Keyboard Back
When testing programs, we sometimes run into those which speed up the
keyboard's typeomatic rate so that barely touching a key results in a
string of letters.
If that happens in DOS, about all you can do is reboot. But if you
have Windows, you can load (or get back into) Windows, bring up the
Control Panel, select the Keyboard, and adjust the typeomatic rate up
and then back down.
This causes Windows to reset the keyboard rate back to where you
originally had it.
-----Windows Apps Outsell DOS Apps
Sales of Windows-based programs for the first quarter of 1993 jumped
114% over last year while sales of DOS programs decreased 20% during
the same period.
Sales of Windows apps reached $669 million and DOS sales dropped to
$502 million. These numbers are based on retail sales and are compiled
by the Software Publisher's Association.
In shareware, new and updated programs come in at the rate of about
two DOS programs for one Windows one. Seems like DOS is not dead yet.
-----Software Excitement Bankrupt
Another major shareware vendor has filed bankruptcy - Software
Excitement.
SE's new shareware magazine ("Shareware Update") and mall store on
CompuServe reportedly created too large a drain. SE had also recently
gotten into rack distribution of software in stores.
SE was the first, and for a while the most successful, shareware
vendor to operate by distributing by direct mail and through magazine
ads a massive number of catalogs featuring only a few hundred
programs.
-----New Retail products
---Game Maker (#30410) $59.95
You can create your own arcade games and adventure games without doing
any programming. You can easily make characters and monsters which can
fly, walk, run, jump, and make sounds. Characters can shoot or throw
any type of object to kill monsters.
Creating scenes for your game is just as easy as creating the
characters. Among the many features is the ability to import graphics.
Several templates are included which can be modified to give you a
head start on making your own games.
Requires VGA graphics, hard drive, and a mouse. Joysticks and Sound
Blaster compatible sound cards are also supported.
---Hole-In-One-Miniature Golf Deluxe (#30408) $29.95
The windmills and cinder blocks of real miniature golf are nothing
compared to many of the obstacles you'll face while playing this game.
There is unusual gravity, magnets, and even golf balls that are moved
telepathically. Attempt a hole in one while navigating through busy
city traffic or dodging machine gun fire.
Hole-in-One has eight different golf courses. Digitized sound brings
the action to life, and sharp realistic graphics add to the enjoyment.
Up to 4 people can play.
---Pinball Dreams (#30409) $34.95
Pinball Dreams is a very realistic pinball machine simulation game.
There are four games to play, each with it's own set of digitized
sounds, images and pinball action.
You'll find all the usual pinball game gadgets such as balltraps,
ramps, bu